Hospital care improving

Patients suffering from five of the North-West’s most common conditions are benefiting from improved standards of hospital care, new figures show.

The Advancing Quality Alliance (AQuA) has published figures which show improvements in key quality measures designed to drive up standards.

The aim is to improve recovery for patients by reducing complications and the length of treatment for heart attack, joint replacement, pneumonia, heart failure and heart-bypass surgery.

Pennine Acute Trust, which runs the Rochdale Infirmary, has been tested in four areas. Standards were met only 60 per cent of the time for heart failure. But the trust did better for heart attacks (97 per cent), hip and knee replacement surgery (87 per cent) and pneumonia (84 per cent).

Dr Christina Kenny, the trust’s associate medical director said the low figure for heart failure treatment would rise by at least 10 per cent for the next set of figures.